Yoan Moncada and bat-flipping son both rise to occasion

Robinson Moncada’s answer was short and to the point, just like him.

“Mommy,” the 2 1/2-year-old son of White Sox second baseman Yoan Moncada answered Wednesday when asked who the better hitter was between him and his father.

One-word answers must run in the family.

“Him,” was Yoan Moncada’s response when he was asked who the better bat-flipper was between the two.

Robinson, who became something of a social media sensation when videos of his bat-flipping went viral, was attending his first game of the spring. His daddy responded by belting his first two home runs of the spring — bat-flipping not included — one against former Cub Jason Hammel and the other against two-time All-Star Royals reliever Kelvin Herrera.

The first tied the score 2-2 in the fifth inning.

“I feel very good and I’m very happy because I have my son with me today. It was very good,” Yoan Moncada said through a team interpreter.

Not all days have been good for the 21-year-old who is one of the prized possessions from the trade that sent Chris Sale from the White Sox to the Red Sox.

Baseball America’s second-ranked overall prospect made his team-high-by-three fifth error of the spring at second base Wednesday. His batting average lingered around .200 before his two home runs. He had struck out 13 times in his first 30 at-bats of the spring.

He’s not worried.

“This is a process,” he said. “You’re going to have ups and downs but you have to keep doing your job and you have to keep working hard. I’m very happy with the process. The results are going to be there when I need it.”

Win and go home: A few items were scattered in a green equipment bag bearing a Mexican flag as Miguel Gonzalez continued to unpack from his recent trip to the World Baseball Classic, one that ended in confusion after Team Mexico thought it had advanced but later lost its protest.

“I had a blast,” Gonzalez said. “It was too quick, though. I would go again if they would invite me.”

After Mexico defeated Venezuela 11-9 on Sunday night, the team thought it had moved on to a tiebreaker against Italy the following day.

Twitter accounts for Major League Baseball and the WBC had announced the matchup, but those tweets were deleted after it was ruled Mexico had finished 1/100th of a point behind Venezuela in a tiebreaker formula involving defensive runs allowed per inning.

Gonzalez said the team stayed on the bus in limbo until 3 o’clock Monday morning and didn’t find out about the final ruling until seven hours later.

“I don’t think that was right for us as players. It’s supposed to be organized and it just didn’t go the way we thought it was going to be,” he said. “We were told if we win by two runs we were going to advance, but that didn’t happen. Things didn’t go our way.”